dBpoweramp Codec Central

Codec Central contains a wide selection of audio codecs. Codec is short for compression and decompression, adding extra reading (decoding) and writing (encoding) abilities to dBpoweramp

There are two types of encoder:

• Lossy: where audio quality is lost whilst encoding in order to create smaller files,
• Lossless: no audio quality is lost (like zip compression).

Refer to Spoon's Audio Guide for details and help choosing the right audio codec to suit your needs.


Which Codec Should I Choose?

Here is a short guide - make sure your intended player supports your chosen type:

• Highest Quality: lossless, no quality is lost,
• Most Compatible: mp3 is king (aac is a close second), plays on everything,

Additional Utility Codecs perform useful actions on existing audio files (such as rename based upon ID Tag).


Included with dBpoweramp

	AIFF	Uncompressed Apple Format  [.aif .aiff]
	Apple Lossless	Apple's own Lossless (ALAC, iTunes, iPod)  [.m4a]
	CDA	Audio CDs, dBpoweramp CD Writer can burn CDA  [.cda]
	FLAC	Popular Lossless  .flac]
	mp3	dBpoweramp uses the excellent mp3 Lame    [.m2a  .mp1  .mp2  .mp3  .mpga  .mpa  .mpx  .mpg]
	Wave	Windows wave    [.wav]
	[Multi Encoder]	Encode to two formats simultaneously

Lossless no quality lost

	Monkeys Audio	.ape
	OptimFROG	.ofr  .ofs
	Real Audio Lossless	.ra  .rm  .ram  .rmvb
	Shorten	.shn
	The True Audio	.tta
	Wavpack	.wv  .wvc
	Windows Media Audio	.wma  .asf  .wmv]

Other Codecs

	AC3	Dobly Digital  [.ac3]
	AAC	Advanced Audio Compression  [.aac]
	Broadcast Wave Format (BWF)	Professional codec  [.wav]
	CLI Encoder	Encode to any Command Line Interface (CLI) encoder
	Dalet	Radio Automation system  [.snd]
	DirectShow Decoder	Decode from any DirectX DirectShow installed decoder
	m4a (Apple Lossless & AAC)	Newest mpeg standard (AAC LC, AAC HE, AAC HE v2, Apple Lossless (ALAC, iTunes, iPod))  [.m4a]
	Midi	Musical Instrument Digital Interface  [.mid  .rmi]
	mp2	Professional broadcast  [.mp2]
	mp3 Helix	Incredible 100x encoding speed (2 GHz Dual Core CPU), 4x faster than Lame  [.mp3]
	mp3 Fraunhofer IIS	From the designers & creators of mp3  [.mp3]
	Musepack	High quality lossy codec above 128Kbps  [.mpc,  .mp+,  .mpp]
	Ogg Vorbis	Open source, high quality, also auToV encoder  [.ogg]
	Opus	New internet delivery codec  [.opus]
	Real Audio Helix	Real Audio  [.ra, .rm, .ram, .rmvb]
	Speex	Speech Only Codec  [.spx]
	Wave64	Sony extension to the wave format  [.w64]
	Windows Media Audio (WMA)	Microsoft V10 Pro, standard, lossless & voice  [.wma, .asf, .wmv]

Utility Codecs for Music Converter

Utility Codecs do not compress or read audio, rather perform useful actions.

	Audio Info	Extract audio details to list, or a tab delimiter table (for Excel)
	Arrange Audio	Arrange audio tracks based on ID Tags (Requires Reference)
	Calculate Audio CRC	Compare tracks for differences in the audio component
	Channel Split	Extract multi-channel audio to single files
	Encode Local	Speeds up encoding to network shares
	ID Tag Update	Update tag version, manipulate or delete ID Tags
	Length Split	Split tracks into smaller chunks
	ReplayGain	Non-destructive volume normalization (requires compatible player)
	Tag From Filename	Set ID tags from filename or folder names